Consilience

Wow this was a really interesting read... @Jack River what are your thoughts on this dude? You frequently mention that intention only feeds thought and therefore psychological time which leads you to claim intention should be dropped. This outline makes a strong case that intention should be sustained in the beginning though. Thoughts?

@Andreas You think Putin is beyond Turquoise or even embodies Turquoise? Lmao

@pluto Great post... Very simplistic

I defintely agree. Humanity is reaching an inflection point where we’ll either collectively slingshot oursleves into a new era or plunge into a new dark age or possibly extinction. If we fuck up AI, fuck up genetic engineering, fuck up the economy, fuck up the planet beyond healing, and generally just fuck ourselves... we’re fucked haha. My point is A LOT could go wrong, but assuming the stars align, we could enter into a new “golden age” previously unrivaled. Exciting times to be alive!

@Erlend K Well ignoring the fact that 1/4th of CO2 emissions is still a large amount, CO2 isn't the only greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gas emission isn't the only problem with the meat, diary, and agriculture industries. Deforestation (we're essentially killing off the lungs of planet Earth with this one), fishery exploitation, mass extinctions and loss of biodiversity, depletion of freshwater sources, animal cruelty, an insane obesity and health epidemic... You want to talk about fixing the environment? Start by fixing how we sustainable feed 7+ BILLION people on this planet, plus feed the animals used to feed the glutenous desires of meat and diary consumers. The meat and diary industry is one of the most wasteful, stage orange, industries humanity willfully and collectively ignores. Not only is it one of the (if not THE) leading source of environmental degradation, it produces an unfathomable amount of suffering so... You all can pick. I suspect if we can make it into the next century, humanity will look back and simply ask, "Why?" lol

You don't have to agree with the data, but it doesn't change what the data indicates. Edit: You have to consider the greenhouse gas emission that would normally be recycled from plant mass (aka forests) that is now NOT being recycled out of the atmosphere due to deforestation, deforestation that is a direct result from the demand for meat and diary. Also if you look into the amount of methane livestock produce, its quite insane. So look into it imo and let the scientific research speak for itself, not some dude on the internet haha. But yes, everything else from health and wellbeing, to living more ethically are other benefits as well. You gotta make sure and do your research when it comes to health though - veganism lacks certain nutrients an omnivore diet would cover such as B12, omega-3s, vitamin D3, etc.

A massive societal shift towards veganism would help drastically slow down environmental degradation. But no one wants to hear or admit that the meat and diary industries are the main drivers of deforestation, water usage, and green house gas emission.

Fuck I never realized this about concentration but I understand what you meant about techniques awhile back... something clicked when I read this thank yout pt. 2 dawg! The thing is though, if one were to rest in a state of awareness, isn’t this the same mechanism of concentration, except like... infinitely expanded? So an open awareness of all of the present moment would be total expansion of a state of concentration. Concentration and awareness are both resting in the present moment. The difference is awareness is completely undivided.

@Jack River Thank you for the insights d00d

@Jack River How does one begin on the path if there is no initial desire to understand? What was your journey like in the beginning? Did you spontaneously drop all desires and identifications, or was there a force, a curiosity of some sort pushing you to learn?

It's more like the subconscious mind is an "uncognized" aspect of our direct experience; as in we have hidden, unconscious beliefs, concepts, and assumptions all tugging on our attention, all directing our experience of life in various ways. The Book of Not Knowing by Peter Ralston goes into a lot of detail with this "uncognized" mind and how through contemplation, we can uncover hidden emotional, social, and self-survival programs, beliefs, assumptions, etc. we unknowingly walk around with. For example, let's take anger: often times people confuse certain circumstances as the cause of the emotion of anger, but if you look closely enough, you'll notice that external stimuli do not "cause" the emotions of anger - the circumstance and the emotions are quite distinct. We only assume that we "should be" angry at something, but WHY are we angry? Why do we equate external circumstance, X, with anger? So basically, start deeply contemplating your emotions, your self images, your beliefs and try to get at the root beliefs that you may be unconsiously walking around with. This is a pretty brief overview, and probably poorly worded, but hopefully it helps. There's definitely A LOT to this subject, and much I personally am still trying to learn and contemplate.

Ive seen this debate before - it’s excellent

I eat a vegan diet. As long as you’re supplementing with the appropriate nutrients, it’s completely healthy. In terms of social situations, what matters more - fitting in socially or supporting the meat and diary industry? I honestly dont understand how anyone who claims to be spiritual could support these industries if there’s the option not to but to each their own. Notice how easily the mind can justify any behavior though; it’s a lot easier to conform to social programming than to look at the truth of these industries.

@Joseph Maynor thank you for the questions. Im just going to have to contemplate all of this as you suggest...

What do you mean that experience is illusory here? Why would pure, present moment experience not be consciousness? And why are you seperating your self from it? That distinction seems like a conceptual duality

This is an interesting concept you’ve outlined

@ajasatya While I actually prefer vaping to smoking, Ive never felt that smoking takes away from its healing potential, at least in terms of psychological healing. Nor have I found smoking it to be anymore addictive than vaping..? Im not sure if you’re speaking from your own experience but Im fairly certain it would come down to the individual. In terms of OP, yeah cannabis can be used as a spiritual tool as long as it’s in moderation. Daily smoking or even frequent use really takes away from its potential, at least for me. Plus my body literally feels healthier when I dont frequently use. But... the potential is definitely there. Im not confident I would have ever stumbled upon consciousness work had it not been for my experiences with the plant.

Well I can't take any credit. Like I said, it was from the Vinay Gupta who claimed he was enlightened. It IS a really creative manta though - incredibly simple and if you have a visual mind, it brings about a very peaceful image of sunflowers haha. I really like the attitude of "even if it kills me" haha. Strong determination sitting is the way to go when meditating

Go full circle with nihilism. It doesnt matter that it doesnt matter; really let thst one sink in dude. The next step is to realize happiness is not contigent upon meaning but instead is found by fully accepting what is and BEING. The fact that your wrestling with nihilism means youre on the right track. But keep going further and realize that meaninglessness is just as meaningless as meaning and that happiness isn’t actually derived from it

Sunflower got the idea from a dude named Vinay Gupta, who claimed to be enlightened and it just sorta stuck haha. Now it’s transformed into being a very powerful way to quiet monkey mind and remind me that happiness is found in the present moment and quite literally nowhere else.

Btw I just re-read my post and its worded in a very declarative way as if Im spouting answers. I actually am very open to being off the mark, or completely wrong haha. This is an interesting topic and is quite confusing

This question reminds me of one of the topics Rupert Spira talks about a lot which is the "knowing" aspect of awareness. That awareness "knows" itself through being, almost like awarness is self aware, it knows it is aware by being aware of its own awareness. Here's a video where he discusses it: "What is this Mind?" This mind is simply more contents within consciousness, but our inner "knowing" has mistakenly identified a disctinction within this experience as itself. Rather than knowing all of consciousness to be the True Self, awareness has known a duality (the mind) to be itself. The mind also has self preservation qualities about it. That is to say, the mind operates in ways in which it propagates its own survival just as DNA does. In this regard, mind is acts in line with Darwinian Evolution just as the rest of the body does. So as the "knowing" of oneself to be the mind continues, so too does the power of the minds ability to hold that light on knowing onto the mind. Ultimately the mind seems to be a mechanism of survival, acting in ways to manipulate the light of knowing, as Rupert discusses, to shine on it and only it. I'm also not really differentiating mind and ego here, so I would say mind = ego in this context. Who is this "you" that the Mind is deceiving and distracting? The inner awareness that permeates all conscious experience. But this awareness has an intelligence about it, or seems to. This awareness seems to have not only awareness of any conscious experience, but also self awareness. Awareness OF the awareness, or KNOWING of awareness. And to reiterate, this knowing is what the mind hijacks.

“I” wish I was advanced enough in my understanding to even understand Leo’s and Joseph’s discrepancy lol

Thank you for asking questions. Overall I agree though- it’s all found within and no books are needed

@Jack River Yes yes!